i certainly appreciate the empathetic and unique, specific aspects of her time at the white house. of course, in the segment we just watched, they became confederates during the war. i am aware of her sister, emily, who married a man who eventually became a confederate general. can you talk a bit about mary's mourning? did she mourn for her confederates? >> that is an interesting question. >> she was the fourth of seven children. there were at least three or four of the siblings or step- siblings who fought actively --

>> and one of them was the husband of one of her favorite stepsisters, emily. >> exactly. and he was killed. and the lincolns had emily to stay at the white house for some extended period of time. in fact, there is a scene where i believe there was a general at the dinner table, complaining about sharing the dinner table with a rebel, and lincoln said, "mrs. lincoln and i do not need any help from you in deciding who our guests will be." anyway, mary made it very clear that her siblings had taken up arms, not only against your country but against her husband, and she saw no reason. >> nancy is in indiana. you are on, nancy.

>> thank you. a wonderful, unique woman, who is my hero. something that is not brought often, about her mental condition, but i have never seen anything about what she took. i do not understand why more people do not bring this up, especially as her mental condition got worse as she got older. >> thank you, nancy. do you know anything about that?

>> no, i do not, but what she is saying would make sense, that she suffered from headaches, probably migraine. >> thunderstorms, too. of was terrified thunderstorms. at the first sign of a thunderstorm, he would leave the office and go home. >> our conversation about mary todd lincoln continues. >> i am watching every time it appears. i want to know, how did the lincoln's come to know each other? >> thank you very much? may we answer that by video? because we are going to learn more about the lincolns' springfield home. >> this is their home in springfield, ill., the only she that they won't, where

learned how to be a wife and mother until 1861. over the course of the 17 years, they added on and added on and created a two-story, very comfortable, upper-class home. after living in the house, they were able to add a full second floor as part of the expanding of not only their family, and his career, he was traveling the circuit, so most of the day- to-day oversight would have been mary lincoln. she was very decisive. she knew exactly what she wanted, so it probably was not too much for her. they were able to add five

bedrooms. there was a guest bedroom, which would have been a luxury. they had their own space, not necessarily to highlight problems in their marriage, but they each had their own space. privacy is not something you get a lot of in the 1850's or the 1860's. he could work on legal papers or political views. mrs. lincoln would have to get up early to make breakfast. her two sons slept in trundle beds under her bed, and then there was robert, the eldest son. he got his own room, but as soon as he went to college, his other brother moved in. and they had to hire girls almost every year they lived here, and that girl had her own space at the end of the hallway right outside of the kitchen. we are in mary's bedroom, and this would have been a sanctuary for her. she is in a household of boys and men, a lot of men coming to visit mr. lincoln, so she would have needed a spot that she could retreat to issue needed to end that would serve as a home office for her. this is morally and figuratively the center of a home.

this is a royal oak stove. you can see the acorns on the oven door. it came from buffalo, new york. mary purchased this stowe from a local dealer in springfield. we think it was somewhere between $20 to $25, and if you think about it, the average person making about $500 a year, this is an expensive purchase. she wanted to pack it up with the other things and take it to washington. wasreagan reminded her she not going to be doing a lot of cooking when she was at the white house, so they left it for the renters. they started out a little bit lower middle class, smaller houses, people moving into the neighborhood, and the neighborhood was starting to grow. mary wanted to not only keep up with the joneses, she wanted to be the joneses. >> the that is a glimpse of the

lincolns' life together. how did they meet? they were 10 years apart in age. >> it has been speculated that a relationship with the stepmother may of been a factor, but in 1839, she went to springfield. why springfield? a sister was married to a man who was governor of territorial ill., said she was immediately thrown into the social set. springfield was a tiny town, maybe 2500 people. >> she was wealthy and well educated. >> this is something i think people tend to overlook. why lincoln was attracted to her in the first place. classic opposites. future senators expressed interest in mary.

she spoke french fluently. she was by all accounts a winning conversationalist, highly educated. a beautiful woman of her day. a compelling figure, and lincoln stood off to one side with his mouth hanging open. owncontrast between his education, his own lack of polish, and one of the things that married did that i do not think she gets a lot of credit for was to add some polish to her unpolished husband. she was his advocate. two races for the united states senate, and his political career. she imagine him in the white house long before, and a parlor on the first floor, just one way in which she conducted a campaign for him.

>> he broke off their engagement for 1.5 years, and here is something he had to say after breaking off the engagement. manm now the most miserable in the world." can either of you tell us how they finally got back together? >> yes, there was a man named francis. his wife, in effect, stepped in and said, "look. this is ridiculous. you care for each other." they reignited a friendship. they announced that very day, mary let it be known to the family that they were married in that night.

edwards and his wife insisted that they have to do it at their house, etc., etc., and a great tragic irony of all of this is that it was in that same house 40 years later that his life came to end. >> our next caller in west fargo, north dakota. >> thank you for having me. i am calling today because i wanted to know your feelings about what mary would have bought when it was time for the slaves to become free. and in minnesota, the largest mass hanging in our united states history, and being a native american from north dakota, i was just wondering.

did mary know about this? and if she did, what were her feelings on this at the time? >> i have not seen anything about her response to the hangings. i know she was very excited about the emancipation proclamation. i suspect from what i have gleaned from her caring about people who were disadvantaged and outside, so to speak, that she may not have liked the idea, but i do not know. >> i know lincoln tried to reduce that number. the original was much, much larger than that, and he reduced its significantly. he went along with the whole thing somewhat reluctantly. >> cindy in denver.

>> hi. thank you for taking my call. i have a question. first, i wanted to thank you for this series. it is great. and i wanted to ask if either of your guests have heard of mary lincoln suffering from mental illnesses that we would today equate with being bipolar or manic depressive. >> we have many people even on twitter try to put a name to mary lincoln's anguish, and how impossible is that to do, when you are looking back 150 years? >> that is what i thought. that is what i was thinking. they used to call it manic depressive before bipolar, but it seemed as though sometimes she was very excited and very outgoing. hysterical with grief. >> how possible is it for us to know this.

>> the symptoms give you hints. >> pointing out the obvious. neither one of us is professionally trained to diagnose any condition, but it is no doubt that there is this continuing fascination and a desire on the part of people to put a name to her condition. >> from what i understood, none of the positions could figure out. they could not come up with anything conclusive in diagnosis. >> as a girl, and there were names, and later, mercurial. >> georgia, good evening. >> hi. thank you for the program. i will mention that my husband and i and three other couples have read patricia brady's biography of washington. two months ago, we read "the

first family," about john and abigail adams, so that has added more to my knowledge of those two, and another book that we read, which is fictionalize, a biography of mary, so i do not know how you feel about that, but nothing in it was new to me or contradicted any thing of other sources, historical sources, except that there was mention of what appeared to be an affair with some government employee. it has been several years, and i am sorry that i do not remember the author, but i was very skeptical about it except for the fact that existing newspapers were quoted with dates and headlines, and i thought it this author has made this up, she really has been bold in doing so.

it seems the employee may have been somebody in charge of housing or government buildings in d.c., and i wondered if you had any comments on that or knew anything about it. >> only that one of the criticisms that have been made, and i alluded to it earlier, gossip. that is how i would characterize it. gossip, suggesting that mrs. lincoln in her desperation -- inappropriate individuals, and how far it went. i would be very skeptical, to be honest with you. thisd we should say that is the first time in history that newspapers were having

columnists, opinion writers. the opinion of her was spread in the newspapers around the country. this is really a change in the way first ladies were treated by the press. >> sure, sure. >> a scapegoat. >> and how incredibly intense the popular emotions were. the civil war. that carries over to coverage the president and his family. >> another video at the springfield home, and this one helps us understand more about the political partnerships that were referred to between the two winds. [video clip] >> this is where she helped build his political career. mary and abraham would invite friends and family over to talk politics. this is where he became the president. mr. lincoln was a very

ambitious person. he had a lot of goals in life. those were enhanced when he met and married mary todd. she was ambitious, saying she wanted to marry a man with a good mind, someone who wanted be president, and there was something about lincoln that she saw the potential and encouraged it and helped nurture it. in the dining room, helping to polish them up for society, the political parties that they have, where they invited a lot of important people. she wielded a lot of power, both of mr. lincoln and where he was going. this is the dining room. when they moved in, it was a kitchen, and that is not something that a college, high- society, upper-class woman would do. mary had grown up with a formal

dining room, and she felt she needed to have one because she did not want her children growing up without proper manners, and in a lot of cases, mr. lincoln needed that polishing, as well. so she created this dining room to have that form, where she and her family and also when they had guests over, so a lot of different people that came to visit mr. lincoln during the 1860's campaign and then after he was elected president. there were four months between the election and the inauguration, so many were coming to springfield, and one ended up being mr. lincoln's secretary of state. mary, being a host, she would have had to raise of cakes or a macaroon. from downtown springfield. we knew that they bought a lot of those macaroon pyramids.

this is the double parlor, and these are the two nicest rooms of the house. there are marble top tables, the windows, gilded candlesticks. there is a what not shelf with a bust of mr. lee again on it. not everybody in the neighborhood could say that they had a bust of their husband in the living room. so this is a fancy place. this is where she wanted to show off. partyould have held her is in here. she would have been discussing mr. lincoln's political aspirations. at the front door, meeting mr. linking here, probably in the archway between the two rooms, may be picking up some refreshments, and then in the

sitting room before going out again. but this was the seat of power in the house. mary was showcasing what her husband had done, how far he had come from that one-room log cabin in the middle of nowhere kentucky to this beautiful house, a very comfortable house, and kind of hinted at where they were headed, stating to the world that abraham lincoln had made it and that he was ready to move on. >> next, a caller from wisconsin, his name is tim. go ahead. >> thank you for taking my call. i have read several biographies about mary lincoln, and i have never seen anything in there as to how influential, some of the policies that abraham inactive while he was president, and i am just wondering if either of your guests could elaborate further as to the extent of the

political decisions that were made in the white house during his time in office. >> she was interested in personalities. it she used to refer to one as that abolitionist sneak. we talked earlier. ironically, obtaining their goal. once they moved into the white house. as we would move that today, it diminished. i think the partnership was in some ways broken. ofhink it was a source frustration. the relationship that they had had before the presidency was in some way greatly diminished. i do not think that she was significantly influential in terms of shaping public policy or the conduct of the war or even who he voted as cabinet.

>> we have only eight minutes left and still a lot of stories to tell. she lived years after the assassination. what were those years like a >> part of the time, she was in a mental institution because her son robert put her there, and i have been debating about him very much about the way she felt he had been disloyal to her and how he was able to control her money and become, i guess, the executor of it. she had to struggle, but she managed -- people who could help her, and i thought that was admirable, even with your problems, that she was able to do that. >> she did something. she was obsessed with money, and at one point, she moved to sell off a lot of her white house

dresses. the public impression. >> she was in debt. >> she was in debt. $27,000. she needed the cash, no doubt about it. she petitioned congress for a pension, which finally was granted, $3,000. >> a month? >> a year. subsequently raised to $5,000. >> but only after she found out that another first lady, and i cannot remember which one, was getting $5,000, and she said, "if you are giving her $5,000,

you should give me $5,000." she went to live in europe because it was cheaper. in 1871 when tad died of tuberculosis. >> how old was he? >> he would have been 16. of the children, only one lifted to adulthood. coming back from europe. yourom baltimore, question. >> yes. a great program. what was mary lincoln's relationship? from the movie, tad and his father had a strong relationship. did he have a strong relationship with her? >> i think it carried over. he had a sensitivity. following the death of his father, he realized how vulnerable his mother was, and, in fact, he appointed himself to try to take care of her.

>> i think his personality was also similar to hers, and i think they were simpatico in that. i think she recognized that and he recognized that, so i'd think that would be another reason why they were close. >> in chicago, and then she went to europe. >> she went to europe. she came back. herthen robert had incarcerated for several months. there was a second trial, however, in which she managed convince a jury that she was perfectly sane. she and robert never really reconciled. she went back to europe for four years, lived in france for four years, and then in 1880 returned to springfield. she was almost blind. she had severe cataracts, and she went to her sister's house,

the house where she had met mr. lincoln. >> from benson, illinois, you are on. >> i think you answered my question. i wanted to know if robert and his mother ever got to be friends again. did he offer to take her to his home? >> what you might call a formal reconciliation. >> i do not think she trusted him. and related to this, from twitter, asking, are there any living relatives? >> there are no living relatives. >> so robert had no children? >> one dies. the last direct descendants died in the 1970's. >> a great question to wrap up the show from facebook. your you are alone with friends, what is your favorite

story to tell about mary lincoln?" do you want to go first? a that she and was about had great relationship. they were the same age. they both lost sons. her son was lost in the army in the civil war, and then mary supported the causes that elizabeth supported. >> and what does that tell you about mary lincoln? >> that she is a very sensitive person, that she could empathize. >> and how controversial would that be that she was a friend with an african-american? >> to some extent, even the people kept calling elizabeth her servant, but i do not think mary looked at her as a servant. i think mary looked at her to be a companion. >> in the case of what might have been, lincoln served only one term in congress.

he would not be reelected, and so it was mary who managed to campaign to get him the job as commissioner of the office at $2,000 per year. it was mary who wrote the letter. and there was the governorship of the oregon territories. it was mary who told him that organ was not friendly, likely to be democratic and that it was not in their long-term interest to be the governor of that territory. >> from denver, colorado. >> hi. i would just like to know a couple of things. what would she have wanted her legacy to be today, and also, would she have been more or against the women's movement in

the 1960's, if there were a time machine? >> thank you very much. the women and the legacy. >> the legacy. that she loved her husband and her family. in that order. >> do you want to add to that? >> she wanted people to get along. i really think she did, and that is something she tried to do early in the white house years, to be fair and encourage people regardless of the party they were in, but with regard to women, i think she might have been persuaded to be a feminist, but it is kind of hard to tell. >> well, we are out of time. providing a more nuanced picture of mary todd lincoln, the wife of the president, and i want to say a special thank you to the white house historical association.

35 installments altogether. thank you for your contributions tonight. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> next week features wife of president andrew johnson. married at 16. businessd a great partner. by the time she reached the white house with her husband, tuberculosis or rendered her weak. monday, live at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span 3, a c-span radio, and c-span.org. our website has more about the first ladies, including a special section. it chronicles life in the

executive mansion during the tenure of each of the first ladies. we're offering a special edition of the book, presenting a biography and portraits of each first lady. comments from noted historians and thoughts from michelle obama on the role of first ladies to about history. now available for $12.95 + shipping act c-span.org/ products. by america'seated cable companies in 1979, brought to you by a public service. >> education reform is the topic. he has a student of westminster academy in fort lauderdale, florida.

>> we talk about crisis, education in america may be in crisis. >> what about education in the united states? is that going in the right direction? >> that is a very tough problem. >> the college board found that in the graduating class of 2012, test scores fell in two of the three sections. rating dropped the lowest levels in four decades. -- leading a drive to the lowest levels in four decades. dropped to then lowest levels in four decades. >> freedom is like the secret ingredient that makes america special. freedom is what america is about. freedom has enabled the greatest minds to dare to know and as an able to america to become a country of innovation.

freedom has allowed us to explore into the unknown, it has allowed us to become the strongest nation in the world. what is the driving force behind freedom? education. without education, a great man will not dare to speak up. without education, our forefathers would not be able to establish a free nation. that is why i believe education is the most important element in our nation. >> they say we live in an increasing global society. i wanted to know how americans students ranked on a global scale. were you look at where we several decades ago versus where we are now, we are now 21st, 23rd, 26 out of 30 developing nations in science, reading, and math. there is no doubt we are in the

midst of a crisis. >> i decided to get a second opinion with the headmaster. >> we are number 2 in the money we spend and we are falling behind further and further when it comes to our international rankings and education. >> for every hundred ninth 78 will graduate from high school. 44 will go on to college. will enroll ins second year of college. only 21 will graduate from a four-year institution. that is simply not good enough to keep the united states competitive in our global economy. >> in order to get an outside opinion of what is going on in

america, i traveled to germany -- he told up with me how things were done in germany. there are many such special in america. our apprenticeship program in germany is very dynamic. wasmerican friends surprised to see the same staff sweeping and serving. things areessary learned in the three-year apprenticeship. it serves as a worldwide example and should be maintained. >> apprentice ships? not a good enough? i needed some sort of explanation. that is why i spoke to the

headmaster of westminster academy. >> one of the challenge that educators face is the changing of the family. there was a time in which the mother, father, children would be a home in which they would be growing up with both parents. now when students go to school in the only have one parent or there are issues in the home, they're bringing those challenges and to the classroom. what schools could should do it should help children love to learn, love to read, it becomes thinkers, become learners, become problem solvers. become those who can cope with difficult situation. i think we are pushing -- most kids may not want to go to college. they may not want -- qualify for college.

when they fail, we call them failures. that is when we fail them. by ninth grade, we know, maybe your interests are not with college. maybe you should go a vocational track. you can be earning a living at age 18. with a diploma in their hands that have no skills. in four years, at 18 -- at age 18, they could be prepared for a job and making who knows what? we need more vocational schools to meet all the needs of the children. matthews, awith mr. dedicated apt to to talk about standardized tests. >> i think it is a wonderful program. -- how do youngs

test maturity? how do you test responsibility? how do you test discipline? there is an immense pressure on the teacher to have a certain test court. my success or failure as a teacher is based on those test scores. you have as when tremendous failure across the board? >> everybody is handcuffed to a system that requires them to teach to a test. teachers have dumbed down the curriculum. can passur students the men do well. we tried to load them up with facts -- and pass them and do well. our nation continues to slip.

our students have lost the ability to do critical thinking. thomas jefferson said, if the man expects to have liberty without education, he will expect what has never been and what never will be. >> america is free because it is in nature -- a nation of intellect. classnot let another graduate unprepared for the tests that lie ahead. that is why on this year of 2013 and i urge you, mr. president, to please reform the education sector to encourage american children to strive academically, to challenge us to rise above so that we can lead america as our forefathers did. >> congratulations to all the winners in this year's competition. to see more winning videos, this student ent -- visits

cam.org. later, health policy experts discuss options for controlling medicare costs. it is meant to help a visitor relive the first eight years of the 21st century. the decisionplains making process but i went through as president. we hope the museum inspires people to serve. >> we really did not want to be a school. i do not know if there is a lesson there, i do know that we decided to go in a different

-- ction >> was the dedication ceremony of the george w. bush presidential library and museum. live thursday morning at 11:00 eastern on c-span 3, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> the heritage foundation hosted a discussion with republican senator of utah on conservatism and the future of republican party. senator lee addressed the boston marathon bombing suspect and the immigration bill. this is 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much. i want to offer my best wishes to everyone here at heritage as

it embarks on what is an exciting new era. spent to make clear i much of the first year that i served in the senate joking or half joking that jim demint should run for president. this is not exactly what i had in mind. perhaps he misunderstood me. the thing that makes jim demint a great leader is the same thing that has always made people like mike spaulding and the heritage foundation so valuable. you are sharing assistance on making a positive case for conservatives, what conservatives are for. in washington it is common for both parties to succumb to easy negativity. republicans and democrats are opposed to each other in an outspoken partisanship. it is what almost gets the most headlines.

this negativity is not appealing on both sides. the helps explain why government is increasingly held in such low regard by the american people. for the left, the defensive crouch at least makes sense. liberalism's main purpose is to defend its past gains from conservative reform. negativity on the right to my mind makes no sense at all. the left has created this false narrative. liberals are for things and conservatives are against things. when we concede this narrative, we concede the debate before the debate begins. yet too many of us do it anyway. we take the bait. a liberal proposes an idea, we explain why it will not work, and we think we have won the debate at that moment. even if we do, we reinforce that false narrative that i am

talking about, winning battles while losing the war. this must be frustrating to the scholars at the heritage foundation who work every day producing new ideas, ideas about what conservatives can be for. moret should be frustrating to the conservatives around the country that we as elected conservatives were elected to serve. after all they know what they are for, so why don't we? perhaps it is because it is so easy in washington to forget. in washington we debate public policy so persistently that we can lose sight of the fact that policy is our means, and they are not ends. we think we were for the court taxes or spending restraint, but those are policies we advocate. they're not what we're really for. what we're for are the good things that these policies will yield to the american people.

what we're really for is the kind of society that those policies would allow the american people to create -- together. there is one idea too often missing from our public debate, it is that idea, together. in the last few years we conservatives seem to have abandoned words like together, compassion, and community, as if they're only possible meanings were as some sort of secret code for stateism. collective action does not only or even usually mean government action. conservatives cannot surrender the idea of community to the left when it is the vitality of our committees upon which our entire philosophy ultimately depends. nor can we allow one politician's occasional conflation of compassion and bigger government to discourage

us from emphasizing the moral code of our world view. conservatism ultimately is not about the bills we want to pass. it is about the kind of nation we want to be. if conservatives want the american people to support our agenda for the government, we have to do a better job showing them our vision for society and reconnecting our agenda to that vision. we need to remind the american people and perhaps, too, the republican party itself that true and proper end of political subsidiary is social solidarity. ours has never been a vision of isolation. it is instead a vision of the husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors, volunteers, congregations, bosses -- the essence of civilization is cooperation.

this is something conservatives should celebrate. it is what conservatism is all about. freedom does not mean you are on your own. it means we're all in this together. our vision of american freedom is of two separate but mutually reinforcing institutions -- a free enterprise economy and voluntary civil society. history has shown both of these organic systems to be efficient at delivering goods and services. but these systems are not good because they work. they work because they are good. together they work for everyone because they impel everyone to work together -- the individuals' self-interest to the common good for the rest of the community and the nation. they work because in a free market economy and voluntary society, whatever your career or your cause, your success depends on your service. the only way to look out for yourself is to look out for those around you.

the only way to get ahead is to help other people do the same. what exactly are all those supposedly cutthroat business men and women competing for? to figure out the best way to help the most people. that is what the free market does. it rewards people for putting their god-given talents and their own exertions out in the service of their neighbors. whatever money they earn is the wealth they create, the value that they add to other people's lives. no matter who you are or what you're after, the first question anyone in a free market must ask him or herself is, how can i help? what problems need to be solved? what can i do to improve other people's lives? the free market does not allow anyone to take.

it tells everyone to give. the same process works in our voluntary civil society. conservatives' commitment to civil society begins with family and the paramount institution of marriage. but it does not end there. just as individuals depend on free enterprise to protect them from economic oppression, families depend on meeting eating institutions to protect them from social isolation. that is where the social order of our civil society comes in. for-profit businesses, non- profit religious, civic, cultural, and charitable institutions also succeed only to the extent they serve the needs of the community around them. forced to compete for voluntary donations, the most successful institutions in a free society

are at least as innovative as profitable companies. if someone wants to make the world a better place them a free society requires he or she do it well. social entrepreneurs know that only the best theater companies and soccer leagues or the best conservative think tanks will survive. so they serve. they serve their donors by spending the resources wisely, they serve their communities by making the better places to live, and they serve their beneficiaries by meeting their needs better together than they can be acting alone.

freedom cannot divide us. big government does. it is big government that turns citizens into supplicants, capitalists into cronies, and cooperative communities in to special interests. freedom unites us and pull this together an alliance our interests. it draws us out of ourselves and into the lives of our friends, neighbors. it draws us upward toward the best vision of ourselves. the free-market and civil society are not things americans need more protection from. they are things americans need more access to. liberals scoff at all of us treat the attack free enterprise as a field theory that privileges the rich, exploits the poor, and threatens the middle class. our history proves exactly the opposite. free enterprise is the only economic system that does not privilege the rich. instead, it incentivizes them to put their wealth to productive use serving other people or, eventually, lose it all. free enterprise is the greatest weapon against poverty ever conceived by man. let me ask, if the free market exploits the poor, how do liberals explain how the richest

nation in human history and its citizens descended mostly from ever person who came here with nothing? nor does free enterprise threaten the middle class. free enterprise is what created the middle-class. the free market created the wealth that liberated millions of american families from subsistence farming, opening up opportunities for the pursuit of happiness never known before or since in a government- directed economy. progressives are dismissive of our voluntary civil society. they did not trust free individuals to look out for each other or solve problems without supervision. they think only government, only they possess the moral enlightenment necessary to do that. to be blunt, elite progressives in washington do not believe in communities at all. they believe in community organizers. self-anointed strangers, ones with ivy league degrees, fashion grievances in an agenda to

address those grievances. progressives believe the only valid purpose of community is to publish the agenda of the state. but we know from our own lives that the true purpose of our communities is instead to accomplish everything else -- to enlighten our days, to ennoble our children, to strengthen our families, to pursue our happiness, protect our freedom to do so. this vision of america conservatives seek is not an ayn rand novel. it is a society of plain kindness and looking out for the other fellow, too. realizingobstacle to this vision today is government dysfunction. this is where our vision must inform our agenda.

what reforms will make it easier for entrepreneurs to start new businesses, for young couples to start families, and for individuals to bring to life flourishing new partnerships? what should government do and what should government not do to allow the free market to create new economic opportunity and allow society to create new social capital? the conservatives are not against government. the free market in civil society depends on accountable government to enforce the rule of law. there are two problems that grow on government like mold on otherwise probably good bread -- corruption and inefficiency. it is important -- government corruption and inefficiency are what stands today between the american people and the economy and society that they deserve. to combat those pathologies, a new conservativism should center around three principles -- equality, diversity, and sustainability.

let me explain. the first and most important of these couples is equality. the only way for the free market and civil society to function is to align the interests of a strong and those of the week, to have everyone play by the same set of rules. define this principle as how our government has always corrected itself. in the past the problem was political discrimination helped the disconnected down. today the specialty is dispensing political privileges to prop the well-connected up. in either case, the corruption is the same, official inequality, twisting the law to make some people more equal than others, making it harder for some to succeed even when they serve, and harder for others to fail, even when they do not.

and so we have corporate welfare, businesses receiving subsidies that smaller companies do not receive. we have uncivil society, politicians funding large institutions based on political favoritism rather than merit. we have venture socialism, politicians funneling taxpayer money to politically correct businesses that cannot attract real investors. we have regulatory capture, industry leaders influencing the rules governing their sectors to protect their interests and hamstringing innovative challenges. the first step in a true conservative reform agenda must be to end this kind of preferential policy making beyond simply been the right

thing to do. it is a prerequisite for the moral authority and political credibility necessary to do anything else. why should the american people trust our ideas about middle- class entitlements when we are still propping up big banks? why should they trust us to fix the tax code when we use their tax dollars to create artificial markets for uncompetitive industries? why should they trust our vision of a free society when we give special privileges to is opposed nonprofits like planned parenthood, public broadcasting, agricultural checkoff programs, and the export-import bank? why should americans trust us at all when too often we do not trust them, when we vote for major legislation negotiated in secret without debating it, and without even reading it, it deliberately exploiting the people from their own government?

to conservatives, equality needs to mean equality for everyone. the second principle to guide our agenda is diversity. or as you might have heard a call elsewhere, federalism. the biggest reason the federal government makes too many mistakes is it makes too many decisions. most of these are decisions the government does not have to make and therefore should not. every state in the union as a functioning constitutional government, and just as important, each state has the unique political and cultural history with unique traditions and values, and priorities. progressives are fundamentally intolerant of this kind of diversity. they insist on imposing all of their values to every one.

50 states are another community to be organized, brought to heel by their betters in washington, d.c. this flies in the face of the founders and of the constitution. it also flies in the face of common sense and experience. the usurpation of state authority is why our national politics has become so dysfunctional and so intolerably rancorous. we expect one institution, the government, to set policies that cover all lives of 300 million people spread across a continent. of course, it is going to get it right most of the time. that is why successful organizations and the free market and civil society are moving in the opposite direction. while governments consolidate, businesses decentralize pretty well. washington insists it knows everything, or as agents rely on networks and customizable problem-solving.

we cannot be surprised that washington has assumed greater control over transportation, health care, and so much else, all of those increasingly centralized systems failing at exactly the same time. conservatives should seize this opportunity not to impose our ideas on these systems, but to outsource the solutions to the states, that the perspectives and values of each state craft its own policies and see what works and see what does not work. if vermont's pursuit of happiness needs its people to want more government and utah's less, then who are politicians from the other 48 states to tell them they cannot have it? would we tolerate this kind of official intolerance in any other part of american life? a pew study last week down americans trust the state governments twice as much as the federal government, and their local governments even more.

this should not be a surprise. it should be a hint. state and local governments are more responsive and accountable than washington, d.c. it is time to make them more powerful as well. in the past, conservatives given federal power had intended to overuse it. we must resist that temptation if we want to be a diverse movement. we must be a tolerant movement. the price of allowing conservative states to be conservative is allowing liberal states to be liberal. call it federalism, constitutionalism. but we must make this a fundamental principle a pillar of our agenda. that brings us to our third guiding principle. once we eliminate policy privilege and restore political and policy diversity, we can start insuring policy sustainability. once the federal government stops doing the things that it should not, it can start doing the things it should. that means the national defense and intelligence.

federal law enforcement and the courts, immigration, intellectual problem, and even the programs of senior entitlement programs. once we clear on a central policy from the books, politicians will no longer be able to hide from the public or from their constitutional responsibilities and limitations. congress will work together to reform the problems government has created in our health-care system. we can modernized our regulatory system. we will be forced to rescue our senior programs from bankruptcy, and we can reform our tax system to eliminate the corporate code's bias in favor of big businesses over small businesses, and the individual code's bias against savings and investing and our parents, our ultimate investor class.

that is how we turn the federal government's unsustainable liabilities into sustainable assets. the bottom line of all of this is controversies in that building over there, the really big white one with the dome, need to start doing what conservatives in this building already do. think long and hard about what we believe, why do we believe it, and most of all remember to put first things first. for conservatives, the first thing is not our agenda of political subsidiary. it is our vision of social solidarity. it is a vision of society as an independent network of individuals, families, formal and informal groups working together to meet each other's needs and enrich each other's lives. it is of a free-market economy that grants everyone a fair chance and an unfettered start in the race of life.

it is of a voluntary society that strengthens our communities cannot protect vulnerable, and minds the gap to make sure no one gets left behind, and is of a just and sustainable federal government that protects and complements free enterprise and civil society, rather than presuming to replace them. this provision cannot realize itself. the left, the inertia of the status quo, and the entire economy of this city stand arrayed against it. realizing it will sometimes require conservatives to take on entrenched interests, pet policies, and political third rails, many of these will be interests traditionally aligned with and financially generous to the establishments within both political parties. sometimes it will require us to stand up for those that no one else will -- the unborn child in the womb,

the poor student in the failing school, the reformed father languishing in prison, the single mom trapped in poverty, and neighborhoods that desperately need all of them. if we believe this vision is worth the american people being for, it is worth elected conservatives fighting for. what we're fighting for is not just individual freedom, but the strong, vibrant communities that free individuals formed, the freedom to earn a good living and build a good life. that is what conservatives are for. thank you very much, and may god bless america. >> we have time for some questions.

i believe there is a microphone wandering around. if you identify yourself, we can go from there. we will start in the back. >> thank you for your talk. i am curious about your use of language -- equality and ability. these are words used about community, and when they are heard, people think of leftist policies. they think sustainability and bashing business. how can we use this language in a way that we start redefine it for a mass culture? >> one way of explaining it is it is not always about republicans versus democrats. a lot of the time it's government versus the people. equality and diversity does not mean the same thing.

when you take a government- centered society out of the equation and point out what we want is the kind of outcome that can best be achieved and produced by a voluntary, free society and by free-market economy, people can understand what we are for. what we are really for can be best achieved without excessive government interference and with minimal intrusion from the government. >> gordon johnson, retired businessmen. we seem to have gotten ourselves in a position, despite what you say, of protecting the 1%, of protecting inequality. how do we translate the things you're saying into the benefits of the 40%, at the bottom, which is what henry ford found. he needed customers, he needed to build up a 40% at the bottom. we seem to be protecting the 1%

at the time. what you are saying is going to benefit the 40%, but how do we get that across to people? >> part of it is when we try to remove the conversation from the exclusive domain of the federal government, it gets easier for people to understand what it is we are really for, and it gets easier for people to understand where for everyone benefiting when you take government out of the patient and the government's mandatory approach to everything, it does not have to be a zero-sum game between this top percentage and that bottom percentage. we can all benefit from a dynamic, free economy. the minute we start taking the conversation away from a washington, d.c., it becomes easier for people to understand what we want, which is for everyone to prosper and for us to stop talking about government

allocating special perks to this group or to that group. >> in the back. >> heritage foundation. you mention social entrepreneuriship, this idea of including your social impact within the bottom line of your business. what do you see as the relationship between social entrepreneurship and social welfare, and what do you see as the relationship between government and social entrepreneurship? should it encourage it and languish and state hands off? >> that question is central, which is the best way that government can support that kind

of behavior is for government to establish a neutral set of rules that govern everyone, a set of rules that is designed to create an environment of law and order rather than one of chaos, and then make sure those rules are implemented in an even-handed fashion so as not to advantage any particular business at the expense of another. that is the best way government can support that, and when the government tries to go beyond that or promises to go beyond that, it usually ends up picking the winners and losers, and it becomes destructive to the free market economy and to the interest we're trying to achieve through the free market economy and a robust, free civil society. >> frances johnson, planning initiative.

we have a challenge before us of gaining more of the general public or least a set of them who will see the wisdom we're talking about here, and then, if you will, support legislators and senators for congress who believe the same thing. now, a way to enlarge these people may be to start with the end game, tell some stories about particular people with names or surrogate names that have been benefited by the system, the father in jail who receives compassion and a fair process, a child in school who has been unable to go through the sixth grade at learning more because of the free school system and so on.

but starting with some examples of real people, this is the way we know jesus made his philosophy known, and add that to our mix. we must cover the points that you have covered. they are compelling. but this will help put flesh on the bone and build us a bigger audience. >> wonderful suggestion. thank you. tell more parables. >> this is something we have talked about, but also at heritage we are doing more precisely to do that, to combine the research, the policy research, which is the bedrock with those stories and getting a sense of where the american people are, how they want to hear that communicated to them, to what we're calling the american perceptions project.

>> it helps translate to why these are not abstract ideas but that individuals benefit from them. >> i just had a question about crony capitalism. what are your thoughts on the collection of legislators who support from both sides of the aisle, the extreme left, and from the right also? >> i assume you are referring to the marketplace fairness act. i cannot support that, and that is apart from the fact that i have an ordinary rule that causes me to proceed with caution any piece of legislation that has the word "fairness" in it. there are some reasons for it. there is the absence of any preemption provision so you continue to have states that are

trying to expand their reach as far as the nexus requirement, the blended under north dakota v. quill, so there is nothing to prevent state action that would extend its reach for the grid at a broader level, i worry about federal legislation that allows states to make tax collection agents out of state businesses that have not purposely avail themselves to the benefits of doing business in the taxing jurisdiction and therefore have no ability, and no direct ability as a constituent to have an input on the legislative decisions of that state. as for why there is such an eclectic and broad support base for it, i do not know exactly what to make of it. i understand concerns that are animating it. i people in utah who support it, including several of our best

state legislators who have been strongly behind this piece of legislation, and i cannot want to disparage them or the good intentions they have, but i cannot support it. as far as how broad the support base will be, i cannot say. when we had a resolution on this in connection of the budget resolution, the senators voting for that, for this proxy resolution, the amendments to the budget resolution, was in the mid 70%'s. it remains to be seen whether there will be that degree of support once we get to the actual bill. >> good questions. >> hello, heritage foundation. i am curious as to which policies help promote these vibrant communities, which we, as conservatives want to foster.

>> the single most important policy from which so many of the other things i talked about today would naturally flow would be federalism or, as i described it today -- it is a regional, political viewpoint diversity that we need to be focused on when we talk about federalism, which is that more people in america would get more of the kind of government they want and less of the kind of government they do not want if they are free to make as many government-related decisions at the most local level possible, at least within their state or within the political subdivision of their state, like county or city level. i think that is the single best way we can get there. >> i want to get your take on whether the bombing suspect in boston should be tried or

declared an enemy combatant, and senator rand paul said today that the immigration bill should be delayed until more of the details are known about the bombing. could you weigh in on that? >> the second part -- tell me what rand paul said -- >> that the immigration should be put on ice until we know more about what happened in boston to see if there are holes in the system that allowed it happened. >> ok. as to the second point, i do not necessarily agree that it needs to be put on hold for that. i think we need immigration reform and it needs to proceed. rand paul and i agree on most things, but as to the particular

timing of the consideration of immigration legislation, i would have to talk to him about that, but i do not see the need not to be holding hearings to examine this legislation put forward. in some way, what happened in boston this week is yet another reason for us to examine our current immigration system and figure out how best to reform it. there are a lot of good things in this bill, a lot of things i do not like, but i think if you separate out a lot of the different provisions in this bill, you get a lot more support for it. instead of holding the entire package hostage until there is a political consensus necessary to pass all that, let's start with areas where there is a broad- based bipartisan consensus come out like in the areas dealing with border security, visa modification. once those things are, from the

standpoint of political realities and from the standpoint of stability, we will be in a better position to address the question of what to do with the 11 million. as to the suspect, it is important to point out that some people are tempted to conflate two questions, one dealing with whether or not he is mirandized and he has not been mirandized, the other dealing with indefinite detention. those are not the same questions. the fact that he was not mirandized upon his arrest does not mean that he can or should be detained indefinitely without trial. it simply is a practical matter for any criminal proceedings, to mean that evidence gathered during that time of custodial interrogation will not be admissible in court.

it does not mean that the government is going to or that it should detain him indefinitely without trial. my understanding is he is a u.s. citizen, was apprehended on u.s. soil, and i am not aware of any circumstances that i believe would warrant holding him indefinitely without trial. we have a bill of rights, and i am aware of no condition present that would give the government the power to get around that. it will be interesting to see what arguments come up, if anyone that wants to argue that he is somehow subject to the exception identified in a case, i am interested in that discussion, but i am not aware of anyone making that argument at this point. >> the heritage foundation.

with regard to the debt limit, i am wondering what you personally think is really important for conservatives see as part of any decision to increase the debt limit. >> excellent question, and is important for us to be thinking about these things. i feel strongly that we need permanent structural spending reform any time we are asked to raise the debt limit. i feel so strongly about it that i wrote a book a couple years ago called the freedom agenda where a balanced budget amendment is necessary to restore constitutional government. the few hundred people who never read that book have all cried out tears of joy is as they did

so, but they saw what i believe is that we should not raise the debt limit before we put in place of permanent spending reform mechanism. i have thought that each time the issue has come up so far, and that is so far my belief, that you have to fix the underlying problem. one of the reasons why we got a credit rating downgrade about a year and a half ago was because we raised the debt limit without putting in place robust permanent structural spending reform mechanisms, and i think that is still what we need. >> i have a question about cronyism. a lot of the special favors that come out of the cuts that are cronyistic are the result of lobbyists doing their job well. these people have a first amendment right to petition the government for whatever favors that they want.

my question is, how do you neuter the ability of government to hand out these special favors and still protect the rights of people to try to get them to the first amendment? >> it is not about the lobbyists. it is about the people they are lobbying. last time i checked lobbyists do not enact legislation. lobbyists are not in control of the levers of government. they might play a role and influence those who are, but those are the people who need to be held accountable. in many respects, lobbyists play a similar role within the legislative branch of government that lawyers play within the judicial branch, and they are both equally valid. -- equally hated. i managed to go from one hated profession, that of the practice of law, to another even more hated profession, a politician, and especially the special brand of politician, a member of congress.

we as members of congress are less popular than all kinds of things. they said we are less popular than the castro brothers -- in america, not in cuba -- less popular than a root canal procedure. [laughter] i'm pretty sure we are more popular than the influence of the virus, but the virus is catching us. anyway, to get back your question, people have a right to be represented in court and they also have a right to express their viewpoint to the elected representatives in government, including those serving in the legislative branch of government. people perhaps in my position like to blame lobbyists. lobbies are not the problem. the problem is the people they are lobbying. if we do not like that decisions coming out of washington, then that is what we have to change. we cannot say that lobbyists cannot lobby. does that mean a citizen cannot make a suggestion to a lawmaker, and if a citizen can't do it, why cannot the citizen retain the services of an intermediary? if the citizen can use the

services of an intermediary, how can we block that? >> betty cooke, chevy chase republican women's club. about a week ago, a person spoke at cato, and she talked about one of the ideas, the fact that the democrats have captured the vocabulary of america, so they have changed their name recently to progressive, which gives a very good feeling to those who are uneducated. and we, as conservatives, are the true traditional liberal, but we have given up that terminology because it has other connotations, and we call ourselves conservatives, and we

understand we are conserving our constitution and the way of life, but they use it to say you are backwards. how do we turned this thing around and provide for the american people the understanding of the meaning of the vocabulary that is being used? >> it is a great question.

that really is the entire or much of the entire purpose of my speech today, to explain why it is and how it is we need to move away from just talking about what we are up against, to talking about what we're actually for, that we are actually for something and there is something we're after which is very similar to what others want. it is just the way we want to get there is better, proven, has worked, and has worked well. in other words, what we want is for american families to be strong, we want them to prosper, we want them to have economic opportunities to better their circumstances, and we think the very best way of doing that is to allow for a robust voluntary civil society to function within a free-market economy. if you allow those things to happen, that is the condition in which we can flourish. it is important to remember government cannot create these voluntary institutions of civil society. it cannot create them. it has the power to weaken them, it has the power to destroy them, but once they are destroyed, it cannot rebuild them or re-create them.

that is why it is important the best away from that washington- centered approach to everything, and we explain what we're for and make the case as to why the way we propose to get there is the better one and in fact the only one that will work. >> with that we will cut it off. we are conserving america's liberating ideas. thank you for that great presentation, and please join me in thanking senator lee. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by >>tional captioning institute]

coming up on the next shamsigton journal" hina discussed the legal definition and history of the term enemy combatant. then colonel lisa marie windsor discusses the court-martial system. journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. today, homeland security secretary janet napolitano .estified on immigration policy it is the committee's third hearing on immigration since the senate so-called gang of eight released their proposed legislation. live coverage starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern, here unseat and. -- here on c-span.

"the closinghor of of the american border" from "washington journal" this is 30 minutes. host: the boston marathon bombing is also having an impact on the immigration debate in the u.s. and some are drawing parallels to the way the 9/11 attacks changed the immigration debate in 2001 and 2002. edward alden is a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. ted, i want to talk about the front page of the washington times. your reaction to how the bombing is clinging to the immigration debate? guest: we have heard quite a lot

about it in the last couple days as more details have come out about the two men behind this. i don't expect it to have a significant impact. when you start to delve into what happened in the case -- and details are still coming out -- it does not appear to be directly related to a lot of issues on the table like immigration reform. folks on the republican side, a lot of them want to see legislation move more slowly regardless. so this is an opportunity for those people to say let's slow down and take another look. i don't expect it will have a significant impact on it. host: one of the folks calling for a slowdown is senator chuck grassley of iowa, a republican. he talked about this issue on friday at an immigration hearing. [video clip] >> how can we beef up security checks on people who wished to enter the united states? how can we insure people who wished to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration law, including the new bill before us?

we have a long road ahead of us to pass legislation reform in immigration. in 1986 we thought we were doing this, but we screwed up and we cannot afford to screw up again. host: that was senator chuck grassley. who else has jumped on this issue and since the boston bombing? guest: you obscene commentators in the newspapers with others, chrysler has taken the lead on this in suggesting a slowdown. i would not say and huge groundswell by any stretch, but conservative commentary you've seen from chuck grassley. and a congressman from texas. but we will see how it plays out. i don't see a huge movement calling for delay. host: the immigration debate after the 2001 terror attacks, about the parallel that uc.

guest: we are in a completely different world in terms of immigration controls. the linking of this immigration would be the argument that somehow u.s. immigration authorities, whether it be overseas or over here, should have been able to see signals that these gunmen were of concern and keep them out of the country. they came with their families when they were quite young. the younger brother was a child at the time and the older one was 14. so it's not clear at the time there's anything could have been done on immigration front. let's say they had been older, but there had been reasons to be concerned about them, the difference is extraordinary. before 9/11 there were very few checks at all. the hijackers came in with only the lightest of scrutiny by the state department. no scrutiny at all when they arrived in the u.s. except for one who was identified in miami

by a smart imf officer at the time. today they would go through a much more detailed background check, checks against terrorist watch list. it would be fingerprinted when they got to the u.s. and compared against a corporate databases. the level of security in terms of trying to identify people coming from abroad who might be terrorists or criminals is light-years beyond where we were before 9/11. not perfect, but much better than what existed 13 years ago. host: edward has written a book about this issue. we will be talking about this issue for the next 45 minutes or so. you can give us a call. the lines are open. the numbers are on the screen. outside the u.s., 3883. talk about these two brothers' specific cases. what jumps out to you about

their immigration cases, how they came to the u.s.? whether any holes we should have looked at? guest: the immigration history is not a particularly extraordinary one. chechen by origin, they got rid duty status in the u.s. there are not many individuals from that region given representative duty status, so there will be questions asked about the initial decision. but this goes back to 2002. so the issue back then would be the parents. host: the about how that process works? guest: the united states admits tens of thousands of people. up to 50,000 people a year because they faced prospect of persecution in their home country.

if they are refugees, they have fled from their home countries. the u.s. along with many other countries in the world admits a certain number of people every year because they have fear usually of political persecution or religious persecution in their home country, but there can be other reasons. asylum claimants are those who come to the u.s. and arrived here at the port of entry and present themselves and say i cannot go home, because if i go back i will be a portrait or killed or jailed wrongly. they have to make that case while they are in the u.s. if they are believed by dhs officials, there is a judicial review process, and and they are admitted to the u.s. as asylum applicants. there are tens of thousands of those coming every year. it's a fairly small portion of our overall immigration, which is 1 million per year. but it is a significant program in parts of the world particularly where there is unrest. in the southern part of russia there's a lot of violence. host: we are taking your calls on this subject.

edwin from ohio on the democratic line. good morning. -- evelyn. caller: good morning. i would like to tell my opinion. i don't hear any kind of talk about these two guys. they were brought over here. i heard on tv and they had been here seven years or longer. i heard this morning the older one had been investigated and was led to go through customs and then forgot about. i would like to say what i feel. they made a big fuss about our president having the name hussein. but they never did check these people and the old one said he had a name nobody could pronounce or spell. why did they not check their

names out when they went to college and keep surveiling them every minute of the day? host: the about how the older brother tamerlan tsarnaev, this issue with the fbi impacted his immigration status. guest: we will learn more about this. it appears that the russian government was concerned about him. he had gone back to russia for six months in 2011 for about six months. the russian government was clearly somewhat concerned about his activities and alerted the fbi in the united states to keep an eye on him when he returned

home. what has come out is the fbi did interview him and did a cursory investigation and decided there was no cause for concern. i suspect there will be a big focus on that as the investigation proceeds, why did the fbi not follow up on that. you can come up with plausible explanations. the relationship between russian law enforcement and u.s. law enforcement has not been very good over the years. so maybe it was the russian warnings were discounted. it's not clear this necessarily would have been an immigration issue. he had a green card and was entitled to come back and forth freely from the united states. if information had come out through the fbi investigation that he had criminal and terrorist ties, his green card could of been revoked. clearly, they never found anything that caused them that level of concern at the time. host: on twitter --

guest: i don't think chuck grassley has made any specific requests other than to take time to investigate this. this of the initial reaction after 9/11. the u.s. created a list of 26 countries, all of them with significant muslim populations and said if you are coming to the u.s. from these countries, we will make it difficult for you. we will investigate your application in great detail, we will deny a lot more those applications. after you come here, we will track you very closely. you will be pulled aside for long interviews every time you come through an airport there that sort of thing did happen immediately after 9/11. what occurred over time was as the systems for screening everybody became better, there was no need for a special system just for folks from these a lot of people said

this is discriminatory. the only thing we know about this countries as they have a majority muslim population. a lot of concern about that. was superseded about an overall system of reviewing background check that included everybody. i don't expect we are going to go back there. there is not a cold lot else we .an do in terms of reviewing we have checked against the terrorist watchlist. tracking systems for foreign students. it is not clear what additional step you would want to take respect to screening. a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations, previously was a project director for the 2009 independent task force on u.s. immigration policy and previously worked at the

financial times with the washington bureau chief there. from norths us now branford, connecticut on our independent line. caller: good morning. i am in disagreement with your guest. he says there is no problem on immigration. watched c-span and heard the calls come in about immigration yucca guest: -- host: they are against immigration? let's let him give his take on the immigration issue. talkinge have been about the boston issue. that is a screening history. there is a broader issue of immigration reform in washington. we have an 840 four page bill drawn up by the so-called gang of eight.

hearing in the senate judiciary committee today. this is a big bill and raises issues far beyond the boston bombings. if you actually look at public opinion polls, most americans either say we have enough immigration now, or somewhat too much. it is a small minority of americans calling for more immigration. generally, americans are happy with the numbers coming in right smaller to see them than they are currently. when look at bill, it basically juggles the quote does. it moves the numbers around encourage immigration more from skilled people with higher education and less in terms of people with family ties. there are a lot of issues on the table in the bill that we are all going to be talking about for some time now. would anything in this bill have affected the

immigration process for the two brothers that have been identified in this case? guest: now. host: nothing in it. if you headlines from over the weekend. from the "new york times" immigration and fear, save a country and a stronger rule of law, pat tiberi has agreed -- past on pretense of reform. .- pass comprehensive reform there is a better way to be safer, pass an immigration bill. if terrorists, drug traffickers and gang bangers are sharp needles and the immigrant haystack come a shrink the haystack among get 11 million people on the books. find out who they are. your take on that? i think that is

largely true. the only thing i take exception with, since 9/11, making the immigration system more secure against people trying to harm the united states, that has been the focus. i would agree with the editorial that if you had a smaller number of people living here out of status, that might somewhat help in terms of identifying people who are of concern. really, there has been this intense focus on screening people coming in. this bill would make marginal improvements in that. it calls for the completion of the exit part of the entry exit system in the united dates. people are fingerprinted when they arrive. our system for tracking them when they leave is not good, but better when -- than most people realize. i think very few americans understand how different the security part of the immigration system is today from what it was pre-9/11.

a lot of the hard work has already been done. host: jeff is up next on the democratic line. , ller: i was calling because i have been talking to some of west didn't send friends -- my students and friends. i noticed that a lot of people are concerned that someone who as the in america, younger suspected. or even the older suspect, age of 14. people are just really concerned. it is scaring people that people that are americanized, they have grown up your and been around other american students and lived their life in the united states can just go to countries like russia for six months at a time, and we don't know what happened over there. something obviously was going on. do you think that maybe

immigrants that leave their country over its -- a certain. tracke is there a way to them better? the color really raises a larger point. there was a very good thief a couple of days ago and the national review by john o'sullivan expressing concern over whether as a country we are integrating and assimilating immigrants as effectively as we did for many years. i think it is an open question. the europeans have struggled with this. the london subway bombing in 2005, discovered that the masterminds there had been born in the u.k. these were second- generation pakistani immigrants born in britain who were in a position in their 20's where they hated the country they had lived in all of their lives area and they decided to that horrible attack.

i agree, i find this deeply troubling and it really does speak to whether we are doing as good a job as we should be as a country. in bringing whoever's coming here and making them fully part part of american society. the question of travel abroad, i think if someone left for six months, he would certainly want to ask them a of questions on the return. you would certainly want to be thinking about what did they do when they were overseas, why were they gone for so long? this is dhs officials greeting them as they come back from the airport. a lot of legitimate questions you could ask. i am not sure how you could establish a specific tracking system for people based on how long they were gone. i don't know what that would look like. some legitimate concerns raised. anthony from washington dc on the independent line. go ahead. caller: one of my concerns have

lways been, we talk [indiscernible] almost a decade now. i think it is more like 20 million. senator schumer and lindsey a new law.ing, how are they going to enforce this? you really think 20 million people are going to come out of the shadows, they are delusional. that is not going to happen. we have problems right now [indiscernible] from federal government. where is the money coming from to enforce this?

guest: the 20 million is a pretty good number. i think it is a pretty good number. 11 million is in the ballpark. the question of how many are going to come forward -- go back to 1986 which was the last time the u.s. congress to this. a big bill passed that offered status to people living illegally in the country. they certainly did not all come forward. maybe 50%-60% of the time and there were lots of reasons why that was true. it is a legitimate concern. there has been a lot of effort in this bill to try to encourage people to come forward. there is a big carrot. you come forward within the first six months, which is what they are presenting in the bill , as long as you don't have a criminal background or some thing else that disqualifies you, you will be given this divisional status which means you can work legally, have a

social security card, get paid above the table. you can travel back and forth to your home country. these are big carrots. and that a lot of people in this status are going to want to do. in terms of the money side, it is all going to be paid through fines and other things levied on the individuals themselves. they will have to pay up to $2000 or more to regularize their status. for some, that may be a big urban. will everybody come forward? probably not. i expect the percentage will be higher than it was in 1986. >> that editorial earlier, here is a piece in the "daily beast." the brothers are proof for need of caution on immigration. theotes that re-examining visa waiver program, earning to the state department, it allows

citizens from participating countries to travel to the united dates without a visa for stays of 90 days or less for business, tourism, visiting or pleasure. it screens for countries of citizenship, but not sufficiently taking into account our other factors that could affect whether grievances are being transported to our shores. according to a former new york police department intelligence experts, the waiver program is one that seems like it is right to be exploited. visa waiver, on and it is that much more difficult to identify him as a potential threat if he has a clean record. yet, ethnicity and family ties are not absolute predictors of anything. they cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. of it i think every word is wrong and false and reflects a deep misunderstanding of the issue. the visa waiver program actually provides greater security than our visa system. a sickly to waste -- the side --

basically two ways to come. with a u.s.eet consular official in the check you out in various ways and then you come to the united dates. or you are from a waiver country, mostly european. france, germany, u.k., japan is part of it. if you are from one of those countries, if you want to come to the united states, you have to submit all of your information to the u.s. government in advance of the trip. you are put against all the same databases that a visa applicant is put against. we have close law enforcement cooperation with all of these countries. coming from a visa country, their police and intelligence forces share very little of it. he's a waiver countries, they share everything. if the french government has concern about a particular individual, it will be shared with u.s. intelligence, law enforcement. it is a more secure system in many ways than the visa program.

lects aect -- this refe lack of understanding in what has changed. if you made that statement in 1998, i would have agreed. there are a lot of holes. they have been plugged of the last 10-15 years. very hard to work the part of two administrations. that just doesn't reflect the current reality. >> billows of our fairfield independent line. caller: good morning. they held a press confce asking for the help of the american people to find new purported bombers. when they have readily admitted that they had been tracking them for years. surely they have their home addresses from their database. i was curious if you had any reasonable response to why they would do such a thing. gets into law

enforcement areas in which i don't have a great deal of expertise. certain amount of public help in identifying. they needed the videos from the stores and individuals who were there at the marathon. that was obviously crucial and i did titian. -- in identification. i've seen different sorts of speculation that it would force them to come out and be more vulnerable. and the ends that was exactly what happened. they probably did have their home addresses but i don't think the two young men headed straight back home after the bombing. i think they were trying to hide. this gets into the details of the investigation, but in individual rights in on twitter, shouldn't we immediately withdraw --- should we -- as they go

for six months. the current system operates, air visa can be revoked for a lot of of reasons. for the sake of argument, claiming that he is seeking asylum or refugee and then goes back home for a long time. if there had been any reason to think that he was a danger, he absolutely could have been barred from reentry. he was not a citizen. being a green card holder does not entitle you to remain in the united states regardless of what you do. a lot of green card holders are stripped of their status and deported because they commit crimes are discovered to have links to criminal or terrorist organizations. if some real information had come out about this individual, he could have been kept out of the country. what we don't know yet is what information the fbi had, was shared by the russians. i think this will come out over the course of whatever investigation follows.

is tosomeone on twitter know about the council of foreign relations. does it have a position on immigration issues? i was the project director for a council of foreign relations tasked are sent to thousand nine. what we do 3-4 times a year on , we assemble as task force of common and individuals. we always have a republican and democratic chair. the task force on immigration, the republican chair was jeb bush, the democratic chair was matt mclarty. we had a group of excellent individuals. in themer cbp chief bush administration. fran townsend, a homeland security adviser. . balanced group we came up with a series of recommendations that we

published in 2009. those are the recommendations of that task force. the council as an institution does not take a position. on the harrisburg republican line. caller: i just would like to say that i don't think that those boys family members, with the exception of the uncle, should be allowed to stay in this country. and they hate this country so much, why don't they just stay in russia? should bee, there more screening about who is coming in here. people from the border, they don't even know who these people are. ends are bad enough in the usa with the citizens here committing crimes without other people coming over here committing crimes. i will take my answer when i hang up. thank you. we actuallyest:

know a lot about people coming here. it's true, there are going to be mistakes. it is hard for me to consider this. if they come over when they were 18, 19 or 20 and had been screened and come over and committed an attack

.

>> i understand we will have a moment of silence for the victims in boston. that is appropriate, and the president is right to lead that effort. quickly, to the families who have lost loved ones, to those who have been injured, our heart breaks as a nation. to the people of boston, you make us proud by the courage you have shown. to the law enforcement officials and intelligence community, god bless you for your hard work and your bravery. what brings me here today is i have been informed that the obama administration has indicated this suspect in boston will not be treated as an enemy combatant. i strongly disagree with the obama administration's decision to rule out the combatant status for the suspect at this time.

i believe such a decision is premature. it is impossible for us to gather the evidence in just a few days to determine whether or not this individual should be held for questioning under the law of war. the decision by the administration to try this individual in federal court is a sound decision. it is the right decision. military commission trials are not available in cases like this. i wrote the 2009 military commission act. i have been a judge advocate for over 30 years, along with the help of many colleagues. we created a system for foreign terrorists. we purposely excluded american citizens. i have all the confidence in the world in article 3 courts at the federal level. they do a terrific job. i have confidence in our military commissions system. the decision by the administration not to proceed in state court in massachusetts i think was the correct

decision. the death penalty will be available at the federal level. this is clearly in my view a candidate for a case to be deemed an act of terrorism. here is my concern. as a lawyer for over 30 years, i strongly support the concept that no criminal defendant should ever be required to incriminate themselves why they are in custody. in custody. that is a long-held tradition in american jurisprudence, in a military and civilian setting. no criminal defendant should ever be required to incriminate themselves in a criminal case. every nation at war should have the ability to defend themselves by gathering intelligence. these are not mutually exclusive concepts. i believe our nation is at war. the enemy is radical islam,

defined as taliban, al qaeda, and affiliated groups. the question i have, is there any association between these two individuals and groups i just named to allow any combatant status? combatant status? difference? it is inappropriate ask questions of any defendant accused to elicit information to use against them in court. there is ample evidence here on the criminal side. a first-year law student could prosecute this case. what i am worried about is what does this individual know about future attacks or terrorist organizations that may be in our midst? we have the right to gather intelligence under the criminal system. we should not question someone

without their lawyer present. along the law of armed conflicts, when you try to gather intelligence about future attacks, there's no requirement for a lawyer. it would disturb me greatly if this administration is relying exclusively on the criminal justice system to gather intelligence. if we have to clear the questions that we're going to ask to gather intelligence, to the terror suspect's lawyer, it would greatly diminish our ability to control the process. the last thing i want to do is turn intelligence gathering over to the suspects and their lawyers. i hope the administration will look long and hard at the evidence and keep on the table the ability to interrogate the suspect for the intelligence gathering purposes against attacks we may face. none of the evidence on the intel side can be used in a criminal court. we're not prosecuting a crime.

we're trying to protect the nation. intelligence gathering is a national security endeavor. prosecuting someone in federal court is a criminal enterprise. weekshe coming days and we will have discussions about how best to defend our nation. the best way we can defend america is to realize we are at war. we did not choose this war. we did not want this war. it has come to our shores twice. how can we defend ourselves against a vicious enemy who is recruiting american citizens to their cost in our own backyard? cause?r to fight the war within our values and our legal structure? we provide lawyers. al qaeda it does not. that makes us stronger, not weaker. we have the ability under the law of war to gather intelligence in a way to make sure that our country is safe from a future attacks.

the ability to talk to individuals who may know about terrorist organizations plotting our future device is a long held concept. -- our demise. i am asking this administration to leave on the table the option if the evidence warrants to designate this individual as an enemy combatant. what do we know? we know these two individuals embraced radical islamic thought, that there is ample evidence this was an attack inspired by radical ideology. they were not trying to rob a bank in boston. they slaughtered innocent people because they view us, the united states, as a colonial power, a christian nation. infidels. but the muslim world can be a

friend. i have traveled out the world and have that many people throughout the world of the islamic faith in our great allies and great friends of america. unfortunately, there is a small minority who would kill every muslim, jewish, gentile, christian, person who disagrees with them. it is imperative we protect the homeland. the desire of this enemy is to strike us in our backyard. i do not wish america to be the battlefield, but it is. it is the choosing of our enemy to make our homeland the battlefield. all i ask is within our values and our legal system we retain the right to defend ourselves, withalues i embrace interrogation and under the law of order, not torture. -- law of war. i along with senator mccain spoke loudly during the bush years about interrogation techniques that i thought were out of bounds in terms of our

law and who we are. but let me firmly say this. having been a military lawyer for 30 years, i know the difference between prosecuting crime and trying to prevent a future attack. the ability to have access to this suspect without a lawyer present to gather intelligence about a future attack is absolutely is central to our national security. essential.utely if over time, the evidence suggests after a reasonable opportunity to make this decision this suspect does not fall into the statutory definition of an enemy combatant, i will accept that result. i think to rule that decision out now is premature and is unfair to those who are trying to protect us. i do not know how in the world we can make that decision by monday afternoon, given the recent nature of this attack. i will continue to work with the administration to create laws that allow us to create tools to defend ourselves

against these enemies. i wrote to the judge advocate general community, all of our military lawyers, asking them 15 questions. you can read those questions for yourself. i will not bore you. on march 25, i ask questions that apply to what happened today. have seen this coming for very long time. i have taken the floor on multiple occasions, the u.s. senate to prepare our nation for this day. this day has finally arrived. the day when the evidence suggests that two people, one an american citizen and the other in legal status, took up arms against our country. the evidence right now to me is ample and overwhelming to suggest that the attacks in

boston were inspired by radical jihadist and their ideology. i do not want to jeopardize any criminal defendants' rights to a fair trial. the public defenders who will be assigned to this case should vigorously defend this young man. by doing so, you make us all safe. having said that, it is imperative that we have time with the suspect not to prove his guilt or innocence. there is ample evidence for that. but to gather intelligence as to what he made no about terrorist organizations that exist or others who may be planning to attack our country. i hope that the congress will look at this case and look at our laws and come to the conclusion that i have come to , we are goingar to be for a very long time, and we have to have the tools to defend ourselves within our

values. one of those schools is the ability to question people about future tax, to gather intelligence for national security purposes without benefit of counsel. the information will never be used in a court of law against the suspect. it will be used to beus. the last thing in the world we should do in the times in which we live is to limit our ability to gather intelligence to the criminal-justice system. in essence, you will have turned over the intelligence gathering process to be accused and their lawyer. thank you very much. >> senator hite, right now people on the terrorist watch list can still buy guns. aham?nator gr >> they should not lose their right without the ability to challenge that determination. senator kennedy was on the terrorist watch list, i think.

i do not want to make that the basis to take someone second amendment rights away. i would suggest that if you are on that list, you have the ability to say, no, i'm not a terrorist. as to an enemy combatants determination, every person designated as an enemy combatants under our system has the ability petition a federal judge threw the habeas review process. the government is required to approved by preponderant of evidence that person is an enemy combatant or meet the statutory definition. no one who is without the process. under the criminal justice system, the government has to approve without -- beyond a reasonable doubt the statutory elements of the crime charged. one system is designed to bring to a criminal act. other system is designed to protect us against future terrorist activity. in my view, they both exist in

harmony in our law. i would urge the obama administration to use both systems. i spoke 45 minutes last night with this as a director of the fbi. all of us are wondering if the russians told us about this guy being a radical islamists in 2011, how could we dismissed it? according to the fbi, the report from the russians seriously. ,hey interviewed the suspect his family members, and those he went to school with and school officials. put his name to the system and found one incident of domestic violence. they sent that report to the russians and said you have any more, because they did not have enough. but never got a reply. they went to russia. how could we not know that? apparently, the misspelling of his name was said that he did

not pop up in the system. did the intentionally misspelled did the russian airline get it wrong? i don't know. is the question we should be asking. let's assume the fbi made a diligent effort to make an investigation based on the russian information? frankly, for what they told me, that withstands scrutiny. untilow could we from 2012 the 2012miss all the radical statements and activities that this guy engaged in, the older brother, on the internet and the youtube videos? the fbi is telling me that some of the tools they need are not there. so is this a question of the fbi not using the tools available to them or is this a question there are not enough tools in the toolbox? i think we need to learn that. but, yes, i am worried about the misspelling. >> what about the underwear

bomber? >> the second time. the underwear bomber was mirandized within 45 minutes. i don't care if you read people their rights, i just don't want you to shut down the intelligence gathering process. he was never designated an enemy combatants. the only way that he agreed to combatant is that the fbi and flew in his family and his family convince him. hadtimes square bomber, he pakistan and taliban ties and he was read his miranda rights and designated to enemy combatants. the son-in-law of osama bin laden is in the federal system today. he was read his rights. he has never been designated enemy combatants. can you imagine what osama bin laden's son-in-law catullus about the terrorist organization? he was the spokesman for al qaeda after 9/11. there's a disturbing pattern here of not gathering

intelligence when the opportunity exists. thank you very much. i have to go. to answer next door any questions you have about the fbi. we will observe a moment of silence with the folks in boston. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> stakeholders from various industries and advocacy groups testified on capitol hill about the pros and cons of the senate gang of eight immigration bill. senator mccain, chuck schumer, dick durbin, lindsey graham, robert menendez, marco rubio, jeff blake, and michael bennet are the architects of the legislation. the first witness will be the

three-time utah attorney general. a partner in a washington, d.c. law firm. first i want bank senator senator -- thank schumer on this, so much time on this. also, andr durban, the gang of eight. we all set on so many committees and never seemed to be a will to meet at the same time, so i appreciate that. why don't you go ahead?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i am very pleased to see that there are four former attorney general's on this committee and two of my mentors in senator blumenthal and senator cornyn. pleasure to be with you today. beginning with my service as a prosecutor in the u.s. navy right out of law school until leaving office as attorney general a few short months ago, i committed my life to public safety and law enforcement. i'm very thankful for the opportunity today to speak on behalf of criminal-justice system on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. an instrument and author of history. i love with the founders said when they wanted to form a more perfect union the first things they wanted to do was establish justice, which was about equal access, equal treatment under the law, and to ensure domestic tranquility. both are what the law enforcement and criminal justice system are about. i believe what this proposed senate bill 744 does.

having been a longtime republican advocate of commons of reform of america's immigration system, i applaud the sponsors and the committee for moving so quickly with the strong bipartisan purpose in holding these hearings and will report on this. from my experience on the ground at the state and local level, dealing with the impact of a broken system, and that's where it is felt, at the local and community levels, our law enforcement and public safety address these interests. it's not only a moral imperative to move forward with a corporate reform, but it also demonstrates what is best about america, and that ability to pull together for the global and to enhance national security and local public safety. i believe not just important divisions about or security do that, but the entirety of the bill is about fixing the system in order to reduce illegal immigration, so that by modernizing our system, making

the legality and accountability are top 30, our government can take control and make immigration work done for america. i'm pleased to able to introduce two letters. a authority been sent to the committee. ar-15, the official position of the national association of attorneys general. having at 36 signers, it becomes the official position in support of comprehensive reform. i'm pleased to work with a couple of my former colleagues, and, and daughter others. a bipartisan letter dated april 21 also in support of this comprehensive immigration reform. >> may it be included in the record. >> thank you. beginning in 2010, states were trying to respond to the lack of commons of reform by congress. the state of utah and law enforcement in particular was during concerned about this huge

negative public safety implications of state-by-state enforcement-only, self- deportation type of loss. we in utah knew that was coming to utah and we wanted to do something different. if we had to do more than just say no. we needed to get together with other important groups. in this case law enforcement got together with those who carry bibles, as well as chambers of commerce, business leaders and theers who knew that negative impacts of the state by state law enforcement measures did something extraordinary in utah, we came together and passed the utah compact, which we felt it helped support a different approach in the state of utah. to do things like a guest worker program and some other issues towards comprehensive reform, and to oppose these negative aspects. by the time 1070 past, we decided to focus law-enforcement

efforts on born after the criminal aliens, the ones here illegally to commit crimes such as drugs, crime, and human trafficking, all these things. 90 +% of our confidential informant's or otherwise and documented otherwise law- abiding members of our community. we understood that by making our law enforcement officers into ice ages with terrible impact our ability to work together as a community with undocumented residents to go after the worst of the worst. so we brought those grouped together. are very brave republican majority in the house and senate in utah past top brands of reform. they were threatened and told by some of the groups that there would be kicked out of office. the truth of the matter was a stepped up and did the right thing and everyone of those brave republican legislators were reelected. did the right thing for the right reason and the people of utah recognize that. i believe the people in this country will do so as well.

border security is very important and there's much to be said about where this bill does. our point is we believe in law enforcement that the best defense is a strong offense. there are so many provisions in this bill that will encourage or discourage illegal immigration that would create the first choice in those who want to come to this country to work to benefit their own lives or to benefit this great country and that is to choose a pathway that is correct and legal. all the other provisions in this law are those that helped secure the border. bill videll, former mayor of denver, colorado. currently serves over the hispanic chamber of commerce of metro denver. good to have you here. >> thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee. bill and i am here

to lend support to the border security and economic opportunity act. we send our present support to our neighbors in texas and massachusetts and in solidarity we stand with you as americans as you try to make a better day for your community. i am the president and ceo of the hispanic chamber of commerce metro denver, an organization over 2000 business members. although ibm is of the business community today, and also bring over 36 years of experience as a public servant? that culminated with my service as the 44th and first foreign- born mayor of the city and county of denver. and the cuban immigrant. at the age of 10 i was sent by my parents to the u.s. with my two brothers as part of a program called operation peter pan that sent 14,000 cuban children to this country unaccompanied by their parents

to escape from castro. my testimony today is rooted in everything that i am at everything i have and everything i have ever represented. it was a direct result of the door i was able to walk through when i first stepped onto american soil,. my personal story represents two great truths about this country. anyone regardless of the most humble beginnings can become anything they sector minute, like the mayor of a large city or perhaps even greater. 52 years ago i arrived in this country and was sent to live in an orphanage in pueblo, colorado. every day and i spoke up not knowing what suffering awaited me. i cried myself to sleep and asked god to take my life and spare be from the sorrow i experience. yet here i am today in this great mall in front of the senate judiciary committee in this great hall. the second true that my story represented that immigrants make positive contributions to the

success of this country day length, especially when they can live out of the shadows, as i have been able to do. over 40% of fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants and their children. the immigrants built america. we came escaping the desperation and party or to free ourselves from oppressive regimes that violated our human rights. we came in search of education and opportunity. we chose a new destiny, the united states of america, a n of hope and promise, as we can contribute. over the leaders, indecisiveness and lack of action on comprehensive immigration reform has resulted in a dysfunctional system that i believe has confiscated the respect we once held for immigrants and replaced it with fear and ignorance that has demonized these individuals to the point that they are looked down upon as human throwaways. there are many business reasons

to improve our system and by the chamber and i are encouraged by the bipartisan effort that emerged to crack this legislation. after all my years in government developing public policy, i know that no legislation will ever be perfect enough to satisfy every nuance from all political sides. hopefully we can agree on one thing, fixing if our immigration system will contribute to the greater good of our country? by securing our borders and providing a safe, fear, and orderly process in this nation, giving a clear set of time lines for legal citizens, providing aipac with the undocumented immigrants already here, keeping families together, providing immigrant children who came here following the will of their parents for a stable home and their own opportunity of the american dream. this comprehensive immigration reform will bring people out of the shadows, which is a good thing, if provide a skilled and dedicated work force that will grow our economy, invite entrepreneurialism and

innovation that will create more businesses and jobs, bring new revenues in the form of taxes that will help us run our country and strengthen our government, bring out into the open a new group of consumers that will spur new business growth. my parents made a courageous sacrifice in sending their children to this country. i am better for it. my life has been filled with hope, opportunity, meaning, and purpose. i am fulfilling their american dream for me, but although it was not perfect but the time, the america i was sent to as a child would never have tolerated the things i've seen as mayor of a large city, where many immigrants must lives in fear of being deported or being separated from their families or having their wages stolen by a deceitful employer or having no legal recourse when crimes are committed against tampa. i ask you to support comprehensive immigration reform. let's brighten delights that america has always probably displayed to the rest of the world. i will be happy to answer questions when the time comes.

>> thank you very much. the next witness is former council of the september 11 commission. the principal 911 security solution. >> thank you for having me here today. i appreciate very much this committee opposing continued interest in reform and securing our borders and protect our national security. i further appreciate being back as an alumna of the committee i was so privileged to staff. i began by putting the bill in context of the illegal border problems and issues with illegal immigration processing. on illegal immigration side, in light of the boston marathon terrorist attack, if we are reminded once more that border security it is essential to national security. historically, the 1986 amnesty program was fraudulently used by terrorists five times in attempts to establish residency. three of five succeeded. the key for each of them was simply applying for the benefit allow them to embed long enough

to commit a terrorist act. the effect of today's bill will not be that much different than the 1986 bill. of theent examples immigration system serving up immigration benefits to terrorists shows the system is not much better now than 1986. first, boston marathon , a 19-year-old, just received his naturalization on september 11 of this last year. syrian knownwn, a the affiliated with the 9/11 buy aiapers and assassinated yemeni leader was granted asylum. the legal problem is big. the southwest border is far from secure. over the texas and arizona borders we are seeing and huge surge in illegal crossings with the texas border patrol saying ways toking askt

deal with the onslaught. is the issue appeared there's no way that illegal entrants who have never encountered our criminal system can be vetted as to what they say they are. with $10,000 to 20,000 foreign- born terrorists that several law-enforcement no reside in the u.s., that creates a serious concern for more terrorists using the compassion we have for the dreamers to embed here illegally using legalization in the built. there are problems with the border security traders as well. overall, the concept of a conference of southern border and strategy is useful, but since the moment security secretary is not really required to assure -- ensure border security, it does not help us assure our borders are more secure. the metric used in the bill to determine a 90% effectiveness rate depends on a 100% detection

rate of apprehension and turn backs, which is not even close to being able to occur today. if there's not a 100% detection, and the 90% effectiveness rate sets forth in the metric will be inaccurate. how would 100% detection rate? be best rate we're not really told in the bill. unfortunately, that makes the metric fail. moreover, the metric only applies to three of nine border sectors prevents an open invitation for smugglers to realign with a new metric and use whatever sectors are not considered high risk. the bill's version of a mandatory e-verify holds no consequences for w illegal consequencesho fail e-verify. e-verify's construct as prewar levels of review to a non confirmation, culminating in an alien receiving four opportunities to get authorized. the practical results is the process for the alien creates a difficult atmosphere for the

importers to terminate an employee even when the grounds for authorization donatist. in terms of the exit system requirements, this nation most certainly needs to fulfill the mandate to complete a conference expects its system that includes air, land, and the seaports of entry. however, the extra component fails to include the largest volume of crossings, which is at land borders. in addition, the exit component is unnecessary for two reasons. six prior inconsistent exit laws have already complicated the exit requirement enough. we don't need another. second, does a few weeks ago, congressional appropriators used their purse strings very wisely to realign exit implementation customs and or production. may be the game changer we need to get the program done, because not only does it need the extra data to conduct admissions, but its sister adjudication for

and to determine overstays. thank you for the opportunity to testify. i'm happy to receive your questions. >> thank you. our next witness is president of national immigration and customs enforcement council. american federation of government employees base here washington, d.c. go ahead. >> the afternoon. i would like to begin by thanking the senators on this committee who have met with me and expressed concerns for law enforcement officers and the needs of law enforcement officers in particular, and ranking member grassley, thank you. americans should understand this legislation only guarantees legal status for illegal aliens. it contains no promise of solving our nation's immigration problem, no guarantee of stronger enforcement of our nation's interior court orders. it ignores the problems that have doomed our current immigration system to failure.

i testified today without having to read this bill in its entirety as the gang of eight;'s rushed to pass this bill denies their fellow americans the time and means of effectively studying the bill and adding input. this legislation was crafted behind closed doors with groups representing illegal aliens, groups with their own interests, groups that stand to make millions from. this from anyone with a significantly different in the opinion -- anyone with a significantly different opinion was prevented from making input. bomb-making in our nation has taken a strange twist as senators invite illegal aliens to testify before congress and groups representing the interests of illegal aliens are brought into the development of our nation's laws, but american citizens working as law enforcement officers with our nation's broken immigration

system are purposely excluded from the process and prohibited from providing input. order sheriff's andi immigration agents all came to washington with the hope that the gang of eight with your concerns. -- border sheriffs. of one member of the gang eight attended their two meetings. i was escorted out by police and senate staff. i was spoken to with this respect and anger. never before have i seen such contempt for law enforcement officers as what i have seen from the gang of eight. suffice it to say, following the boston terrorist attack, i was appalled to hear the gang of eight telling america that its legislation is what american law enforcement needs.

since 2008, president obama has ignored many of the immigration laws enacted by congress and has instead created his own immigration system that unlawfully provides protections for millions of illegal. illegal of course, congress has done nothing to stop president. that submit to everyone america will never have an effective immigration system as long as presidents and their appointees are permitted to ignore the united states congress and pick and choose the laws they will enforce and enact their own laws without congress through agency policy. this bill does nothing to address these problems. in fact, unbelievably, it gives far greater authority and control to a president and the secretary of dhs, exactly the opposite of what our country needs to create a consistent and

effective immigration system. if the laws enacted by congress are not enforced by, the by america has no promise of future enforcement. -- if the laws enacted by congress are not enforced by the nocutive, then america has promise of future enforcement. aden cannot arrest individuals from entering the u.s. illegally or overstaying their visas. agents are ribbon from enforcing laws regarding a fraudulent document and identity theft. if agents are not permitted to wrest public charges. agents are forced to apply the obama "dream act, not to children in schools but to adults, inmates, and jails. releasing criminals back into communities, crumb also have committed felonies, who have resulted officers, and to prey on children. at an alarming rate, ice deportation numbers have

plummeted since 2008, evidence that interior enforcement has been shut down in large part. contrary to reports by presidential appointees. my initial impression of this bill thus far is that in large part it appears to have a lot of loopholes. everything from gang activity and to arrest records to criminal backgrounds and fraudulent activity at many levels are accessible or waiverable under this bill. the entry and exit system is in effective yesterday. we already know aliens are engaged in illegal activities that will bypass. at a time when congress is proposing legalization for millions, i think americans expected a stronger enforcement across the board that would prevent another wave of illegal immigration. unfortunately, in terms of enforcement and providing for public safety, i think this bill is going to fall short in terms

of legalization, individual citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants its success is guaranteed. thank you and that concludes my testimony. >> the director of research at the center for immigration studies in washington, d.c. on economic and fiscal impact of immigration, correct? >> that's correct. >> please go ahead. >> i like to paint the committee for inviting me. i'm going to focus today on the fiscal side of things with some mention of the economics. in the modern american economy, those with relatively little education, immigrant or native, earn modest wages on average and pay modest taxes by design. there lower income also means they often benefit from welfare and other means-tested programs. as a result, the less educated in general, immigrants or native, use more in services than they pay in taxes. there's simply no question about

this basic point. the relationship between educational attainment and net fiscal impact is the key to understanding the fiscal impact of immigrants. the national research council estimated in 1996 that an immigrant who arrived in the u.s. without a high-school moreation will use $89,000 in services than he pays in taxes during his lifetime if you just a bad for inflation it would be much bigger now. for immigrant who comes with only a high-school education, but fiscal drain its $31,000. however, more educated immigrants pay more in taxes than they used in services. in the case of illegal immigrants, the vast majority have modest levels of education, averaging only about 10 years of schooling. this is the primary reason illegal immigrants are a fiscal drain, not their legal status. my own research indicates that

if we were to legalize illegal immigrants and they began to use services and pay taxes, like a legal immigrants with the same level of education, and it does cost at the federal level would roughly tripled, because they remain unskilled. the figure to my left illustrates the strong relationship between fiscal impact and education. reportedre shows self- use of major welfare programs and tax liability for immigrant households in the 2011 census bureau data. the figures showed a 59% of households headed by immigrants who don't have a high-school education use one or more major welfare programs. 70% of those same households have no federal income tax liability. the census bureau calculates how much they should be paying in taxes. 70% of those households would pay none. of illegally 75%

immigrants either have no high school education or only a high- school education, but chart illustrates what is a problematic about illegal immigration from a fiscal point of view. it is worth pointing out that less educated natives also have high rates of all for use and lower rates of tax liability. it is also worth pointing out of the immigrant headed households using welfare, 86% had at least one worker. these high rates of welfare use are not the result of a lack of work, rather they reflect educational attainment and resulting low incomes and low tax payments and thus eligibility. advocates of amnesty and high levels of immigration have two responses to this. first, they argue welfare and other programs used by u.s.-born children living in immigrant households should not count. that makes little sense, because the child is here as a direct result of their parents have

been allowed into the country. so it must count as well. the national research council statistics did not include the children. it was only for the original immigrants. and they still found very large net fiscal drain for less educated folks. the other argument advocates of high immigration and amnesty make is that immigration creates such wonderful benefits for the economy that offset this cost, but the national research council estimated both the fiscal effect and the economic effect and found that the fiscal drain for immigrant households was slightly larger than the tiny economic benefits that we got from immigration. and nation's leading immigration economist, a harvard professor points out in a recent paper that immigration mixed economy larger, significantly larger, but it does not make americans richard. it does not increase the per capita income of natives." advocates for the amnesty responded, the national research

council and the epidemic research is ron paul. the cato institute commissioned a study a few years back using a model originally designed to estimate the impact of trade. they found the economic impact was bigger, but it's not clear that model even applies to immigration. they largely ignored the actual physical characteristics of immigrants like their use of social services. more recently, douglas will take in, in an article, argued that immigrant induced population growth would generate large fiscal benefits or increases in per capita gdp, but he also ignored academic literature and ignored development ladder truck that looked at the impact of population growth on a per- capita gdp if that does not show a big benefit. and he never mentioned in his paper and the impact of legalizing illegal immigrants. >> thank you. >> could i say one more sentence? in conclusion, if we decide to

go ahead with this, after be honest with the american people and make it clear it comes with very large as costs. >> our next witness is grover norquist. here patiently all day. go ahead. >> good to be with you. thank you. people are an asset. they are not a liability. america is the richest country in the world. it is also the most immigrant- friendly country. this is not a coincidence. it is our history and it is what we have proved again and again. those of us who would change our history and would make us less immigrant-friendly would also make us less successful, less prosperous, and less american. i am delighted that at a time when people talk about why it should washington not able to get something done, we've seen a lot of movement on this issue, because we have a growing consensus. the reagan republican movement

understands the need to come to legal status, for those who are here. reads in the business community go from silence the strong advocacy for making the progress. farmers, ranchers, the dairy people, a high-tech industry, all the committees at stake. teavangelical protestants, southern baptist convention, the national association of evangelicals, the mormon church, the roman catholic church, the jewish organizations, all are moving in this direction. this is a real opportunity for congress to get together and make progress. however you look and this, it is important we use dynamic scoring when we ask how we handle some of these statistics. people don't like immigrants want to look at costs and not benefits. want to imagine the 20-year-old state all their lives. they stimulate skills, they get older, and 30-year-old matt moore the 20-year-old. ask yourself -- there was a 15% jump in the income of the people

who got legal status in 1986. imagine what would happen if your children or your siblings, if somebody said go out in the world and do the best you can with no driver's license and be the best you can but don't get on an airplane or live in fear that when you do an interview somehow you might get deported at the end of the interview. i would argue and common sense tells us that people who can live without that fear, people can get a driver's license and fly on a plane because they have earned legal status and immigration reform that you have put together and are looking at has all the protections against bad guys coming in who need to leave and this is tremendously helpful, and taking a look at what douglas holtz-eakin has talked about, this is not just some increase in the economic health of the country. its $2.70 trillion in reducing the deficit by having more

people working. more people working, more people paying taxes is not a tax increase. it is deficit-reduction without a tax increase. i think it's the kind of deficit reduction that we can get bipartisan support for in the country. grow up all sorts of other issues. what about public education? public schools don't teach kids how to read english well and don't teach them american history. but that's a problem, then we need education reform. that is being worked on a state- by-state. that's a problem for kids born here as well as everybody else, in terms of the quality of education they're getting. what about the welfare system? 185 means-tested welfare programs. bill clinton worked with republican congress to reform aid to families with dependent children. we can make progress on the others as well, and reforming welfare is important and needs to be done. it saves money and keeps people

from getting locked into welfare dependency. but none of those are arguments for getting in the way of immigration reform. then there's the question of entitlements medicare and get benefits because they are born, a question of immigration greenback the question of entitlements system that needs to be reformed. so let's reform public education and the welfare system and entitlements, but let's move forward first now on immigration reform as well. thank you. >> thank you very much. it's not aabout -- question but you talked about so many immigrants who are not legal and they have no legal someone tells them they will pay them $20 and they have no legal recourse.

my wife is a registered nurse. we were driving near los angeles. a well-dressed person with a large dog was walking down the street. a person who appeared to being andorkman's clothing appeared to be hispanic walked up the street. as we drove by, we saw the blood dog bite/om the this person walked up the street knowing this person could never make a complaint. that is stuck in my mind for years and years.

>> mr. chairman, people suffer even greater happenstance and even greater crimes and have no legal recourse to block of the perpetrator. >> trust me. i was a prosecutor eight years. i know those who are afraid to come forward and report rape, battery, robbery. which meant that the rapists, the robbers, a person committed battery got away scot-free and that's ron knipling. they're out there and they can do that to anybody else. some -- and you addressed this, but i will emphasize, we cannot afford to reform our broken immigration system because of the current federal deficit, i have heard. i've heard pipa reasons why i cannot do something. it's easy in the senate. five reasons why i cannot do something. do you believe the current proposal before the committee

would compound the budget and deficit challenges we all agree we have in this country? . >> quite . -- quite the opposite. it's clear that people who earn legal status are not eligible for many federal benefits for 10 or more years going into the future. second, that gives you plenty of time to reform some of these programs that need to be reformed and that the folks on the house side have already passed a number of reforms in the rhine budget, which i commanded the senate. but it shows it can be done. and i think it will be done. also, when you tell somebody that you are going to tell them go ahead and look for work without papers, but you cannot get a licence or fly, the number of things you cannot do, of course it depresses their wages and makes it more difficult for people to do better. i think you will see in this case, as we have in the past,

tremendous increases. let me suggest, go back in history. this argument that people have come over will be wards of the state was used against the irish americans and eastern european and about seven europeans and asians. we have heard this again, decade after decade. the people who said it have always lost. thewell, my father was brainchild of irish immigrants and was in a very thriving business. my maternal grandfather came here from italy and he also put together a business in stone carving that employed a whole lot of people in a small town with very good wages. you know, you mentioned many of us have had a law enforcement background and you

were attorney general. questions.d will it help the efforts of state and local law enforcement to combat crime in their communities? >> absolutely, mr. chairman. state, and federal, law enforcement officers all the time. i attend funerals. i've created a foundation to treat police officers who are labs from busting meth without proper protection. as a support to assist them in their jobs. the people they work with in their communities, the concept of community based policing, which is critical to success in our communities of mandates that people feel safe and unable to work with law-enforcement and trust that when they are heard, seeking help, they will have back from their local law enforcement. >> but it is the trust they after have. >> absolutely. >> is it possible we can have immigration efforts that might

destroy that trust? >> absolutely. in law enforcement we deal with what is happening on the ground, not theoreticas. theoretics. everything we're trying to do now will encourage people to come out of the darkness and paperback taxes. it will not happen still social security numbers now because they will be recognized. i believe it would be a boon to public safety in this country as well as a moral imperative to move forward. >> thank you very much. i yield to senator grassley and hand the gavel over to senator schumer and deacon handed over to a whomever he wishes. be happy to hand the gavel over. >> i have handed the gavel over

to you on more than one occasion. here you go. >> can you talk a little bit more about the need to include land ports in the entry/exit system? >> sure. the land borders right now have the largest daily and annual crossing rate, more so than the air and sea ports. the exit component here does not include the land ports of entry. perhaps that's because the infrastructures are difficult to deal with. that's understandable. but they need to be included, because people can come in by air or by sea and leave by land and we still don't have the data we need for ice to do with for eyes to do its job -- for ice to do its job.

andearned on our findings all my subsequent work that i'm one of the beltway to determine a terrorist identity is through plyometrics, because they often change their name and identity. without the bioelectric biometric, -- component, you will not get what you need. biographical is good. it's a good first step. if that's what the appropriators duste -- jsut did. that's a helpful first stop. but biometric would be helpful down the road if you want to assure national security. >> in my opening statement i talked about how the bill does not necessarily require the border to be secured before those here illegally are provided legal status or even citizenship. is that your reading of the bill?

>> yes, senator. comments, i tried to point out that we currently have a situation where the secretary of dhs and the president of the u.s. do whatever they want to do. they ignored the law and manipulate data. all these things that are critical to making sure that there's some system of integrity and placed to monitor what dhs there. are doing down >> you know that i agree with you most of the time, mr. norquist. aresurprised to hear you backing a bill and as emergency spending.